How to read a processing plan - smith-special-collections/sc-documentation GitHub Wiki

Before we process anything, we need to have a plan of what work we will be doing and what we will not be doing. This plan is created by the processing archivist, and in order to write a processing plan they do a survey of the collection, look over legal agreements and correspondence with the donor, and discuss with the steward about any political or donor-relations aspects of processing. After doing these surveys, the processing archivist will write a processing plan.

The processing plan template can be found here. The rest of this page will talk about the important information in each section of the processing plan.

Introduction

The first two entries are the collection title and number. The title and number helps us identify which collection we are talking about. The collection number is unique, so that when there are multiple collections with the same name (for example there are Sylvia Plath papers in both the College Archives and the Mortimer Rare Book Collection) or a collection name changes we can still identify the collection.

Background Information

This section includes:

  1. Approximate dates of collection- This tells us what period of time the collection covers, and therefore the kinds of formats we might expect. I.e. if there is a collection that covers the 1990s, we might expect to see floppy disks and CDs, but not vinyls.
  2. Source name, relation to collection, and summarized custodial history- This tells us the history of the collection, who gave it to us, and why. Custodial history is especially important for telling us what changes have happened to the collection since it was created and if anything has already been done by the archives.
  3. Accession Number(s)- Accession numbers are assigned to each chunk of materials we receive, so this section can tell us how many chunks we have and over what span of time we received them.
  4. Collection size- This tells us how big a collection is and how complicated the project will be. Size is measured in linear feet, i.e. how many feet of shelf space does the collection take up.
  5. Other related collections- This includes collections that may have duplicate materials (meaning we would want to weed or spend less time on those papers) or may include collections that augment the materials (meaning we would want to spend more energy on processing to provide a fuller picture and access to both collections. Related collections include materials by the same creator, by an employee/employer, or by a colleague or family member.
  6. Brief description of collection- This section describes what kind of material is in the collection and what topics it covers. It helps give a full picture of what the collection actually includes.
  7. Brief summary of historical context- This section talks about who the collection is about. This could be an individual, a family, an organization, or an event. This will give context when processing and give us the necessary background to understand the material we will be working with.
  8. Language of materials- This entry tells us whether we will need extra help from a language expert.
  9. Locations of the collection- This section tells us where the collection is and what it will take to bring it to our work space.

Rights Information

Rights information includes any legal agreements we have made with the donor. This legal agreement, usually called a deed of gift, should specify who owns copyright, as well as any restrictions to researching, viewing, copying and viewing the collection. If there are parts of the collection that are closed to research, we will usually move them to their own separate boxes to prevent them from accidentally being shown to researchers. The deed also specifies what the donor wants us to do with materials we weed from the collection. They have the option to have the material returned to them, sent to another person or archive, or discarded at our discretion.

Current status of collection description and arrangement

This section tells us about the current state of the collection. It will include how the collection is organized, why, and whether this organization should be kept as is.

It will also include a survey of any description that already exists of the material. This could be a finding aid, an accession content list (i.e. a list stating what the archive received from a donor), or a list created by the donor telling us what they are sending. Accession lists are usually the most helpful, because they include an itemized list of what is in the boxes. However, sometimes to speed up accessioning, these lists were vague or did not include unlabeled materials, so they are rarely complete. Additionally, if anything has been moved after it was accessioned, then this list will be useless for finding material (though it can inform us about what was in the collection). The survey in the processing plan will list all description, assess their accuracy and usefulness, and recommend whether these lists can be reused to save us work.

Preservation issues in the collection

Preservation issues are broken into two categories:

  1. Immediate preservation threats- this includes anything that is actively damaging material, like poor housing, mold, insects, chemicals (usually we notice a strong smell), etc. Processing should take care of most of these preservation threats.
  2. Long term degradation issues- this includes the slow, unstoppable decay of materials, especially audiovisual or digital media. Everything has an "inherent vice," i.e. properties that make it break down and disintegrate over time. Some materials, like VHS or pulp newspaper, have more inherent vice than others, and will need archivist care sooner. Most of these issues will not be fixed by processing, though processing can give us a better idea of where problem material is, how much there is, and its current state. Every once in a while, processing may include copying fragile material, or restricting fragile material until we can remediate the issue.

Appraisal of collection

Appraisal is an assessment of why the collection material is valuable (to see a discussion of types of archival value, go here). This assessment includes:

  1. The value of the collection to the historical record
  2. Whether there are certain sections of the collection that will be more valuable or informative for researchers, or sections that are less helpful that we can weed or put less work into
  3. Whether the collection is a duplicate of another collection, or whether the material was split into several collections (or even to several archives)
  4. Whether there is a political or donor relations value, or a reason to process the collection in a certain way
  5. Whether there is anything in the collection that we will need to restrict or weed for legal or privacy reasons (to see more on what we restrict, go here)

Recommendations for processing

This is the proposal section of the document, where we discuss what the processing archivist thinks we should do to the collection and how. It includes:

  1. Arrangement- Arrangement includes both what order material will be in and also how we will get it into that order.
  2. Description- Description proposes how much detail we are going to go into, whether we will be recycling any existing material, and anything unusual we may want to emphasize or include in the finding aid.
  3. Rehousing- This section describes what we will be doing to preserve the collection, especially through replacing boxes and folders.
  4. Restrictions- This section lays out what is already restricted in the collection, and anything we will need to assess once we get further into the material.
  5. Separations- This section proposes what we will be weeding from the collection, how much we will remove, and what we will do with it.
  6. Other Preservation- While we rarely do preservation measures outside of rehousing, occasionally we will preserve digital material or separate out especially problematic materials (especially mold), to protect the rest of the collection.
  7. Proposed staffing and estimate of time- This section allows the processing archivist to plan ahead for future projects and decide whether something is a good student project. Generally, students will not be asked to do everything in processing a collection, and you will often be processing in a larger group.
  8. Special supply needs- This lists any supplies we need to order before starting the project.
  9. Other comments that don’t fit anywhere else

Additional possible future processing work

Processing is never considered done forever and there is always more detail or work that can be added. This section lays out what the collection may ultimately need, but is outside the scope of the project. This can include further preservation work, taking a closer look at a particular section, more material we expect to receive that should be integrated, etc.

Reviewer comments

This is a section where other archivists can make comments on the processing plan. By the time you see a processing plan, any issues or edits should have been resolved, but this section often has questions and things to look out for from the rest of the staff.

Contents for Tech Services student manual